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Stepping in Deep Duke-y: A Post-Mortem

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The mini-scandal that erupted after it was reported that Fulbright & Jaworski partner uttered “the n word” during a recruiting event at Duke Law School has pretty much blown over.
Much wind was taken out of the racist sails when it came to light that the partner said the magic word while “recount[ing] a story about Leon Jaworski’s defense of an African-American man in a murder trial in Waco, Texas in the 1920s.” The partner uttered the racial epithet “in an effort to display the depth of racial hostility that Jaworski and his client faced.”
In case you’re still interested in this story — and we understand completely if you’re not — an account of yesterday’s meeting, between Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers and law students at Duke, appears after jump.


From a tipster at Duke:

The managing partner from Fulbright made a sincere and heartfelt apology. Reasonable people should be able to move on.

This was at the meeting yesterday between a team of Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers and law students here at Duke. The Fulbright team was led by the managing partner. He began by accepting “full responsibility,” and he apologized profusely.

They then cited their firm’s history as the best rebuttal evidence against charges of prejudice. They were the first major firm in Texas to hire attorneys of Jewish heritage. Their firm received an assigment from Robert Kennedy himself to work on the integration of the University of Mississippi — and lost many clients as a result. They have hired a large number of minority students from Duke in the past five years.

At the assembly, some students raised questions about “a cover up,” since the interview took place several weeks ago. It appears some students believe that the firm and Duke administration “conspired” to cover this up.
Our sources at Duke have expressed doubt on that score. Instead, it seems that the student in question didn’t bring this to the attention of the administration until weeks after the fact. (Perhaps the student was unsure of the incident’s seriousness, given the context in which the word was uttered.)
But once the student DID bring this event to the attention of the administration — after being encouraged to do so by liberal law professors, rumor has it — the administration acted swiftly and decisively. Dean Katharine Bartlett sent out her blast email to the entire law school. Administration officials contacted the law firm to investigate the incident. In the words of our original tipster: “The law school has handled the incident very well, and in an extremely timely fashion.”
So move on, folks. There’s nothing to see here.
Earlier: Breaking: Fulbright & Jaworski Partner Drops the N-Bomb During A Recruiting Interview!
Stepping in Deep Duke-y: Maybe It’s Not That Deep?

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